


dearly beloved, we have gathered here today to ask you to LEAVE ME ALONE

by noxelementalist



Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Collection: Purimgifts Day 2, Female Friendship, Gen, Late Night Conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 13:58:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22973875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noxelementalist/pseuds/noxelementalist
Summary: "I need your advice on how to get River to stop watching me and Simon have sex," Kaylee hissed quietly.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 18
Collections: Purimgifts 2020





	dearly beloved, we have gathered here today to ask you to LEAVE ME ALONE

**Author's Note:**

  * For [muggle95](https://archiveofourown.org/users/muggle95/gifts).

> set post-Serenity. Has some mature conversations, but nothing's depicted.

There was a knock on her shuttle door.

Inara glared it from where she lay on her bed. She had only been back aboard Serenity for a week before Inara had remembered all the comforts the Firefly lacked: large spaces to walk around in, views of grassy mountains and waterfalls. Collections of instruments to play and music to listen to, and many, many people to talk with.

The one comfort Serenity did have though was the ability to lock her bedroom door. A bedroom Inara had been forced to reconstruct somewhat haphazardly, including one very eventful bed purchasing trip. But she had reconstructed it, and on a day like this where no jobs were happening and nothing but travel to do, Inara had been looking forward to having a cup of tea and a day spent in bed, maybe with the addition of reading a romance novel from the stack on her bedside desk.

Maybe.

The knock sounded again.

Inara sighed. “Yes?" she asked, getting up and walking over to where she had thrown her nightgown.

"It's me, Kaylee. Let me in."

"Kaylee?" Inara asked, opening the door to see the woman standing there with just a bed sheet wrapped around her waist, her normally neat hair falling in disheveled waves around her face. "What's-"

"I need your advice on how to get River to stop watching me and Simon have sex," Kaylee hissed quietly.

"...Come in," Inara said, mentally groaning to herself.

"So here's what happened," Kaylee began as she stepped inside, Inara closing the door behind her. "Me and Simon, we're horizontal tangoing now."

"I'm aware."

"And- what, really?" Kaylee asked.

Inara stared at her. “I'm a Companion, Kaylee. I know what formerly rich, now disgraced, Inner Planet city boy who’s had sex looks like."

"Yeah, it’s adorable," Kaylee admitted, a smile growing on her face. "It's the part where his sister keeps watching us that I'm beginning to have a problem with."

"So you said."

"At first I thought, hey, she's probably just a little curious about the whole thing," Kaylee told her, lying down onto Inara's bed.

There was a part of Inara's brain that automatically calculated how many credits Kaylee could make selling pictures of herself in that pose, followed by how much  _ they  _ could make if she joined her. 

That part of her brain was mirthlessly shut down by the part that wasn't a Companion on the run.

"It's not like River's, you know, least as far as we know," Kaylee was saying. "And people probably think about it around her mind-reading brain long enough that she'd want to see if the reality lives up to the imagination, which it never does."

"Unless it's with me.”

Kaylee waved a hand at her. "You don't count, you're a Companion, you’re most folks dream come true.”

Inara tried not to feel too proud at hearing that.

"Then I thought, maybe she's just protective, wants to make sure I'm being all consensual. Which I am!" Kaylee added quickly. “So I figured, hey, maybe River’s trying to angle some kind of three-"

" _ That _ is where I stop you, I don't-"

"-but I'm pretty sure it's not that, and I want her to stop," Kaylee finished. "You got any ideas? ‘Cause if I wake up one more time to see Kaylee staring at me, somebody's going to get hurt, and it's probably going to be me."

Inara was about to respond when there was another knock on the door.

"Hold that thought," Inara said to Kaylee. "And- maybe consider going under the blanket."

Kaylee shrugged. "Mal's seen me like this before, it's fine."

The knock came again. "Add you telling me why you think it's Mal and why he ever saw you like  _ that  _ for another time," Inara said as she opened the door, revealing River standing there in a pair of pajamas with tiny unicorns on them.

"You can't just leave like that," River said as she walked into Inara's room.

"Hello to you too," Inara said.

"River, you can't- can't," Kaylee stammered, looking at Inara.

Inara took a deep breath. "River," Inara said to her," Kaylee would like you to stop watching her and Simon have sex."

River blinked. "Only if they’re quieter.”

"Quieter?!" Kaylee hissed. “Excuse you, I-”

"You both think really loudly,” River told her. “And dirtily. It's worrisome."

"River,” Inara started, “people imagine things all the time-"

"Not like that.”

"Simon thinks dirty thoughts? About me?" Kaylee interrupted. 

"...You want to know?" River asked. 

"Well  _ yeah _ . Inara,” Kaylee stated, “make some tea. We're gonna be here a while."

"In my bed."

"On your bed," River corrected.

"Yeah, what kind of girls do you think we are?" Kaylee asked.

Inara thought very carefully about how to answer that.

"You're leaving out price inflation and Kaylee’s bartering skills," River told her.

"River!"

"Yeah, we're expensive," Kaylee said. "So tea, and River, let's talk."

Inara sighed to herself. _Well_, she told herself as she walked towards the kitchen, _I guess hearing a romance novel brainstormed aloud is as good as reading one._

_ _


End file.
